


It’s Just One More

by Unreal_Kitty



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Greyjoy Rebellion, Post-Canon Fix-It, R Plus L Equals J, Robert's Rebellion, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Theon Greyjoy Lives, Theonsa - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23402593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unreal_Kitty/pseuds/Unreal_Kitty
Summary: What do Theon Greyjoy, Jon Snow, and a litter of direwolves, have in common?Ned Stark needs to explain them to his wife.Years later, Theon has his own explaining to do. Fortunately for him, a stray kitten is an easier sell than a pair of children or a pack of legendary beasts. And anyway, Sansa has always been partial to pets.Warning: There is far more angst in this thing than the description would suggest (but fluff is still abundant).Filling the “accidental baby acquisition” prompt for the March 2020 Theonsa challenge
Relationships: Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Jon Snow & Catelyn Tully Stark, Jon Snow & Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon & Ned Stark, Theon Greyjoy & Catelyn Tully Stark, Theon Greyjoy & Ned Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 136
Collections: Theonsa Challenge 2020





	It’s Just One More

**Author's Note:**

> Who says “accidental baby acquisition” has to refer to a human child?

_315 AC, tenth year in the reign of Sansa Stark, Queen in the North_

The kitten looked like nothing more than two enormous blue eyes peering from a ball of snowy fluff. Little Margaery’s own blue eyes were as wide piercing as the animal’s. It wriggled in her arms. 

“Can we keep her?” she implored, struggling to impart just the right levels of desperation and charm in her voice. 

Sansa glanced at Theon. Her husband was making rather a show of avoiding both her eyes and his daughter’s face. He studied a tapestry on the wall with intense interest, despite having passed it a thousand times before without comment. 

Amazing how the same man who charged Death himself with a spear could be so cowed by the prospect of denying his child a pet. 

The cat in question could not have been more than a few weeks old. Young Margaery had found her in the stables, sitting apart from the rest of her barncat litter. The poor thing, it seemed, was entirely deaf, and judging by her limp, had wandered too close to a horse’s crushing hoof. 

Margaery, ever the sensitive soul, had apparently rescued the kitten and snuck her into her chamber, feeding her milk she had wheedled from the kitchen staff. 

Sansa had discovered the plot one night when she checked in on her youngest daughter before bed. The kitten had wandered out from beneath the bed and swatted at the hem of her skirt. 

And now, Margaery was throwing the full force of her persuasive prowess behind her campaign to keep the animal. She had a lot to throw. _“Our daughter is well-named,”_ Sansa once told Theon, when recounting her time in King’s Landing. _“Margaery Tyrell could tame a lion with nothing but a smile and a clever word.”_

“You won’t have to lift a finger, I promise,” began their own Margaery. “I’ll feed her and clean up after her, everything. And she’d be the perfect chance for me to learn responsibility.” Margaery was disgustingly eloquent for a six-year-old. 

Still, Sansa thought, six was rather young to raise a cat on one’s own. 

_“Please.”_ The girl managed to convey intense passion without a hint of whining in her voice. 

Sansa risked another glance at her husband. Queen she may be, but they had long ago agreed that parenting decisions would be made together. Theon, she saw, had finally dragged his attention from the tapestry.

His sea green eyes regarded the kitten’s sapphire ones with a mix of amusement and skepticism. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
_283 AC, first year in the reign of King Robert Baratheon, First of His Name, the end of Robert’s Rebellion_

Catelyn Tully’s eyes were the color of sapphires. Ned hadn’t noticed before. The newlyweds had such little time together before he was dragged off to war. He knew his wife’s eyes were blue, of course, Tully blue. But now, as they struck him with the intensity of their pain and betrayal, he noticed they weren’t just blue. They were twin sapphires.

“You already have a son,” she argued, gesturing up toward Robb’s window. Inside his room, the baby slept soundly, unaware of his parents’ furious argument below. 

Ned sighed. “It’s just one more!” he said in desperation. Too late, he realized this was not the right thing to say. 

Catelyn’s silence was thunderous. 

“Cat,” Ned tried again, in as tender a voice as she’d ever heard from him. “He’s just an infant. He doesn’t deserve to suffer for...for my failure.” _Promise me, Ned._ “Please.”

The bundle wriggled in his arms and squalled. Catelyn, who had studiously avoided looking at the baby since the minute her husband carried him through Winterfell’s gates, finally glanced down, and wished she hadn’t. 

The baby’s eyes were as dark as a river at midnight. It was obvious that they’d soon change entirely from blue to brown. Stark brown. Her husband’s eyes. 

Catelyn’s throat clenched. With great effort, she swallowed, forcing down the hurt and sorrow into some dark place deep in her core. 

_Get ahold of yourself,_ Cat, she thought. _You are the Lady of Winterfell now. You are a mother now. Be the Lady. As for the mother…_

“What did you say his name was?” she asked, in a defeated tone. 

“Er, Jon.” 

“Jon,” she repeated softly. The baby looked up at her, curious. Catelyn gave an exhausted sigh. 

_Well, we’ll see. For now, the Lady will do._

“Come,” she said to Ned. “It’s too cold out here for an infant. Bring Jon Snow inside.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
_289 AC, sixth year in the reign of King Robert Baratheon, First of His Name, the end of the Greyjoy Rebellion_

Snow battered against the glass windowpane. Although the walls of Winterfell were heated by piped water from the natural hot springs, Ned still felt a chill. 

This was not the homecoming he had looked forward to. 

Many a night during the Greyjoy rebellion, he dreamed of returning to Winterfell, and to the loving arms of his wife. Catelyn would tell him stories of their son, all the antics and trials and moments of pride he was forced to miss. Perhaps there’d be a story or two about Jon, as well. 

But the schemes of kings are not made with fathers in mind, let alone husbands. Robert Baratheon did not consider the feelings of Catelyn Stark, nor the delicate dynamics of their growing family, when he volunteered Ned to take on Balon’s youngest son as ward. 

Ned’s joyous homecoming would have to remain a fantasy.

“What else could I have done?” he asked a furious Catelyn in as quiet a whisper as he could manage. The Greyjoy lad had already been settled into his room to sleep, but Ned would take no chances. 

Theon was older than Jon was on his own arrival to Winterfell. Still too young to fully understand what was happening to him, but certainly old enough to be irreparably wounded by the battle at hand. No child should hear that they are unwanted.

“What else could you have done?” answered Catelyn incredulously. “You could have said no!”

“I already told you, Robert didn’t ask me. He already made the official agreement with Lord Balon, in front of a Hall full of lords. I couldn’t contradict my king in public!”

Cat made a coughing noise in the back of her throat. “Robert did not show you the same tact, Ned. A child isn’t a tourney, to fling unto your friends without thought.” 

Ned shook his head as though to wave away her concerns. “Ah, well, tact has never been Robert's strong suit. But it’s not a terrible plan, really. I was a ward, myself, as was Robert. And it did us both a lot of good.”

“Ned—”

“We both regard Lord Arryn as a second father,” he interrupted. “So when Theon grows up, perhaps we’ll finally have a friendly Lord of the Iron Islands for a change.”

Catelyn looked unconvinced. “You can fish a kraken from the sea, but a kraken it remains.”

Ned frowned. “Fish have turned to wolves before,” he said quietly. He scratched his neck. “He’s very young. We’ll raise him to be a good man, an honorable man.”

Catleyn shook her head heavily. “You can’t be his father, Ned”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You cannot be his second father, as Jon Arryn was to you.”

“Lord Arryn loved his wards and taught us well! Everything I am, I owe to him. Surely I can do the same for my own ward!”

“Your hostage, you mean.”

Ned found he couldn’t reply. He turned his eyes away from his wife and watched the snow dance outside the window. 

“What sort of king takes a child hostage?” spat Catelyn with real disgust. _And now yet another child will pay for the folly of kings and their games._

“Our king does, whether we like it or not.”

“Well, _Lord Eddard_ , when Balon Greyjoy inevitably grows tired of bowing to this king of ours, I hope you remember to wipe your sword after you’ve driven it through your _ward’s_ neck.”

Ned reeled back as though she’d struck him. 

“Ned,” said Catelyn, not unkindly. “Are you really prepared to…to murder this boy for the sins of his father?”

He didn’t answer. 

“Because that’s what you’re agreeing to do.”

“I know.”

“If you refuse to do your duty, you can put us all in danger. Me, and Robb, and your bast—and Jon too.”

“I know.”

Catelyn brushed a strand of hair from her husband's face. “You’re a good man, Ned. With a kind heart. It grieves me what Robert Baratheon would make of you.”

Ned shook his head as though to banish a dark thought. “Balon Greyjoy just lost two of his sons, as well as a war. I can’t imagine he’d be so careless with Theon’s life. Nor with what’s left of his fleet. The boy will be safe enough.”

Catelyn sighed. “Is this how it’s going to be? Every time you leave home, you come back with another woman’s child in your arms?

“Cat, it’s just one more.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
_298 AC, fifteenth year in the reign of King Robert Baratheon, First of His Name_

Catelyn couldn’t believe her eyes when Robb, Bran, and Theon paraded through the Great Hall, each with a direwolf pup or two tucked in their arms. 

“Arya! Sansa! Rickon! Come quickly!” cried Robb. ““Look what we found in the wolfswood! Come here, there’s one for each of you!”

Arya flew across the room, nearly barreling into her brother. Rickon toddled behind as fast as his little legs could manage. At first, Sansa attempted to walk calmly to her siblings like a lady, but about halfway across, her excitement got the better of her. Lifting her skirts, she darted past her mother and hurried over. 

“Oh, look at them!” she squealed, reaching for one of the pups in Theon’s arms. “What a sweetling!” 

Theon grinned and plopped the she-wolf into the girl’s arms. 

“Father said we can keep them!” Bran said, holding up his own wolf for his mother’s approval. 

Cat finally found her tongue. “Did he now?” she said, glancing at Ned, trailing behind in the back. 

Her husband cleared his throat. “Under a few conditions, of course.” He turned to Bran. What did we agree to?”

“We will train them ourselves and feed them ourselves,” the boy recited. 

“And?”

“And...and when they die, we will bury them ourselves.” 

“Good lad,” said Ned. 

Cat caught his eye. She raised a questioning eyebrow. 

Ned looked at her helplessly. “They are a symbol of our House, “ he explained. “Clearly the gods have sent them to guard our children.”

_The gods, hmmm?_ After 16 years of marriage, Cat was starting to believe that Ned was a bit of a pushover when it comes to babies, human or otherwise. 

“Is that so?” she asked with a wry eyebrow. “The gods sent five direwolves to our children?”

Before her husband could answer, the heavy doors of the Hall clamored open and Jon Snow hurried in. A tiny white ball of fur was tucked under one arm. 

Cat turned back to Ned. “ _Six_ direwolves?” 

Ned smiled sheepishly. “It's just one more.” 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
_315 AC, tenth year in the reign of Sansa Stark, Queen in the North_

Theon could feel three sets of brilliant blue eyes boring into him. 

“Mother? Father?” his daughter implored. “Please?

He turned to Sansa with an exaggerated sigh belied by the grin creeping up to the corners of his eyes. “It’s just one more.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a huge thank you to my dear friend Harry Dresden for her invaluable brainstorming, idea-bouncing, editing, and overall willingness to listen to me blather on about my OTP (which is NOT hers) for hours.


End file.
